Ryanair to close nine of its Manchester routes

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Ryanair have announced that they are to switch nine of their ten Manchester airport routes after the Greater Manchester airport "refused to lower its charges to reflect the lower fares being paid by passengers in the current recession".

The airline claim to have offered Manchester airport 28 weekly flights and 400,000 new passengers in turn for them lowering their prices. Unfortunately an agreement could not be reached and the resulting closures will see Ryanair end their routes to and from Barcelona (Girona), Bremen, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon. These flights will run for the last time on the October 1, 2009 and look set to threaten 600,000 passengers per year and 400 local jobs.

Ryanair appear to be targeting airports such as Leeds Bradford, East Midlands and Liverpool to establish an alternative to the Manchester routes. They recently announced new bases at Leeds Bradford airport and Porto. The airline have also indicated that they intend to expand operations at East Midlands and Liverpool. Ryanair representative Stephen McNamara said,

"Ryanair will continue to grow at low cost airports which work with us to deliver the low fares required to keep passengers flying during this recession. Ryanair apologises to passengers affected by these cancellations and will contact them in the coming weeks to provide them with a full refund or a switch to similar flights to/from lower cost airports in the region.”

Manchester airport have responded to the announcement by the low-cost carrier on their website by echoing Ryanair's assurances that passengers would be emailed and provided with a "full refund, or the alternative of flying to some destinations". A Manchester airport spokesperson expressed their regret at the situation by saying,

Not withstanding all of our investment in Manchester Airport including during the current recession, we don’t believe that charges as low as three pounds per passenger are unreasonable. Clearly, Ryanair do and that’s regrettable. We’ve consistently cut our charges for the last 15 years even when faced with increased costs such as security. Passengers will still be able to travel directly to the majority of the destinations affected by choosing other airlines”.

Written by: Jon Vickery, August 18, 2009

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